Every time I a plan to hit the happy trail I get this little tingle in my stomach. Excitement fills my heart. Visions of what the future may hold as my travels take me to places I have not yet seen. Or thoughts of revisiting old friends and places that previously brought me joy. Every time but this time. This time all I could think about was getting away from this place that I was in. This windowless box that was filled with hate, fear and distrust. The constant looking over my shoulder.
I could tell it was even affecting Sammy. She was more protective of me than she had ever been. Not wanting to let me out of her sight and thankfully much more cuddly. In the face of hard times there is nothing greater than the unconditional love of a 4 legged friend.
Focusing on my construction contracts as they needed to be completed by the time we left, I blocked every emotion from my mind. Good and bad, I was numb. But I did get a lot done, 3 fences, 2 gates, 1 support wall and the repairing and faux finishing of a cement front porch. I was given two 7 by 4 windows by a previous employer and was itching to design a project around them, so on top of the construction jobs I designed built a sun room for my backyard. I did not realized it at the time but the act of designing and building was calming my mind and my heart started to open a bit again.
By chance I rented my house to a fellow traveler. Before I left she wanted to chat about the trips we had taken and trade stories. I let her know I was far to busy but we should grab a coffee on my returned. This was not true. Meeting new people was not yet something I was ready for. But I did get a good feeling from her and rented the house to her. That was a start anyway.
Slowly so slowly the leaving day came. The plan was to head to my friends place in the morning pick up the rental pack them up go to my place pack up my stuff and off we go. But it was not going to be that smooth. They had not packed yet. And they still had to say goodbye to a bunch of people. Looking back it was quite hilarious. At the time I was totally frustrated. So I waited trying to be patient. Not one of my virtues on a good day. I arrived at 10am and we left their place at 2:30pm. When we got to my house we loaded in my things and were on the road. I had Sammy at my feet a kennel with 2 cats behind me with a dog on top of the kennel and a dog in the back. 3 people 3 dogs and 2 cats. Madness. To add to the tension I thought I would have a 3rd of the space in the mid size car and because I was keeping Sammy at my feet I would have more space for stuff. My logic was was one person with one pet sharing with 2 people with 4 pets. This did not sit well with the group. So when we were packed in and on the road at 4pm in rush hour traffic needless to say no one was really happy with the situation. But we all put on our happy pants and endured 16 hours of allergies truck stops coffee and cat fights. No one died so lets just say it was a successful trip. ;) Would I ever choose to travel that way again... not in a million years. However as the ocean breached the horizon as we approached the bridge that connects New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island I actually started to feel a little lighter.
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